Ready to Be Wardens
by Jedi Amoira
Summary: Picks up where "The Tower and the Hovel" ended. Elan recovers to wonder why Flemeth saved two green Wardens from certain death, while Alistair concocts a plan of action that may or may not be mostly his own idea. Spoilers. May add 1 more chap later.
1. One Life, One Price, One Duty

Disclaimer-- As much as I wish otherwise, I do not own DAO. I do not own any of the characters there-in, including the female Cousland origin character, though I would like to think my interpretation of her is my own. I do not own the environment, events, dialogue, etc. I expect and will receive nothing from this story but the joy of paying homage to excellence. (Imitation, after all, is sincere flattery.)

Dialogue for this fic is taken from/modeled after lines in DAO, though I have tried to keep this to a minimum.

Nonetheless, I do work hard on my little stories, and I love them. Please don't repost or reprint them without my knowledge. Further, like all fanfic writers, I am fueled by reviews. If you like and want more, please encourage me by telling me so. If you see something you dislike or think needs to be fixed, I will be happy to learn...but please be gentle!

Note-- This fic is a fragment of what or may not eventually become a longer, more comprehensive fic. If I waited until that fic was in a condition to post, I would never post at all, and I wanted to post.

* * *

It was quiet. It was too damn quiet.

The voice murmuring through her had been nothing like the taint in her blood—the taint maddened, it burned, it screamed of fear and it stank of despair—this voice...well...the despair was there...and yet, the despair was different...it was warm, imploring...affectionate? It drew her and comforted her...she struggled up toward it...up through the darkness and the pain...but as she drew closer, it vanished.

Elan woke with a start, nearly cracking the woman leaning over her in the nose with her head. Any other time she might have been apologetic, but she had bigger worries at the moment. "Where am I? What happened to the darkspawn?" _Oh, curse the darkspawn, as if I cared! What happened to Alistair? And where's Woofus?_

"We are in the Wilds," the woman said, sounding reasonably calm and friendly under the circumstances. "I am Morrigan, lest you have forgotten, and I am bandaging your wounds. You are welcome."

Normally Elan would have blushed at the remonstrance, but nothing about this situation felt normal in the least. She stared at the woman in disbelief. "I remember you...but..."

"How does your memory fare, then? Do you remember mother's rescue?"

"I remember being overwhelmed by darkspawn," Elan said, clinging to this fact, the only certain thing in a ridiculously uncertain world.

The dark-haired girl nodded.

"Loghain...didn't come." Elan said, slumping back into the pile of furs and blankets. "The field...was overrun...we were overrun..."

The girl nodded again, looking pleased, presumably with Elan's ability to recall as much, rather than with the circumstance. "Just so."

"Then...everyone died? The king? Duncan? The other Wardens?" Elan thought she might be sick. She wished she were hallucinating, but somehow she doubted it.

The girl nodded a third time. _Maybe I am hallucinating at that; why else would that nod resound through my head like a death knell?_ Elan shook her head a bit wildly, desperate to clear it.

"Your friend," the girl—Morrigan?—said a trifle disapprovingly, "he is not taking it well."

"How do you take something like this _well_?" Elan demanded, her voice veering dangerously close to frantic. "This is horrible!" Then her heart gave an odd sideways lurch. "Wait...did you say _my friend?_You mean Alistair?"

The girl looked relieved, as if this question heralded some return to reason. "The suspicious dim-witted one who was here with you before, yes. He is outside with Mother. She wished to see you when you awoke."

Elan looked down at herself in her small clothes and up at Morrigan.

Morrigan smiled slightly and walked over to a small chest near the wall. "Here are your things."

"I'll go then." Elan struggled upright and began to dress.

Her armor felt like a burden she thought she had finally set down, only to pick up again...and heavier than before...but the burden...well, maybe it didn't feel entirely unwelcome. She was still alive. She still had a chance to do her father's bidding, a chance to pay her debt to Duncan as a Grey Warden. A chance to make Arl Howe and Teyrn Loghain pay.

Elan took a deep breath, musing over the lingering tightness beneath the dressings where a couple of arrows had pierced her lung. She straightened her shoulders and pulled the door to the little hut open.

"Thank you, Morrigan...for taking care of me." she added, feeling awkward and inadequate.

"I..." the witch seemed surprised, "I am no where near as skilled as mother...but..." she smiled shyly, "you are...welcome."

Elan took a few steps away from the hut, the door squeaking shut in her wake.

Alistair was standing among the tall reeds a few feet away, his profile limned on the rosy sunset like the image on a coin. Elan paused in mid-step, her breath catching in her chest.

"You see," Morrigan's mother said without turning around. "Here is your fellow Grey Warden. You worry too much, young man."

Alistair turned toward her, disbelief and wonder warring in his face. "You...you're alive!"

Elan stared back, drowning in relief. Hers and his.

"I thought you were dead for sure," Alistair said.

_So did I. _ "I'm fine," she said, sounding considerably more nonchalant than she felt. "I appreciate your concern," she added, including the woman who was watching them in the comment with a glance.

"This...doesn't seem real," Alistair sighed, staring at her as if he was afraid she might vanish if he blinked. "We should be dead on top of that Tower. If it weren't for Morrigan's mother—"

Elan barely heard the witch's remonstrance, nor the exchange that followed, though some part of her did register a certain realization that under other circumstances, she might have found the whole exchange rather humorous. As it was, however, she could only wonder....

"So why _did_ you save us?" Elan asked warily, remembering the price Duncan had placed on her life.

"Well, we cannot have all the Grey Wardens dying at once, can we?" The witch retorted, almost flippantly. "Someone has to deal with these darkspawn. It has always been the Grey Wardens' duty to unite the lands against the Blight. Or did that change when I wasn't looking?"

So...the price was to be the same. One life, one price. One duty. Elan supposed that was something. Unfortunately, she'd proven a miserable failure at living up to this duty so far. If she hadn't, she and Alistair would hardly have been in need of rescuing.

Easier to focus on someone else's failings than to admit how much she feared and regretted her own. "The land is hardly united, thanks to Loghain."

"It doesn't make any sense!" Alistair protested. "Why would he do it?"

"Now that is a good question," Flemeth said, her dark eyes assessing him. "Men's hearts hold shadows deeper than any tainted creature. Perhaps he believes the Blight is an army he can outmaneuver. Perhaps he does not see the true evil behind the threat."

"The archdemon," Alistair whispered, his eyes returning to Elan's. The dragon she'd seen in the Joining seemed to hover between them.

"Then we need to find this archdemon," Elan said, her voice thin and faint as a single thread in a tapestry.


	2. As We'll Ever Be

"By ourselves?" Alistair exclaimed incredulously. "No Warden has ever defeated an archdemon has without an army of thousands at his back..."

_Well, then, at least we'll have surprise on our side,_ Elan thought, almost amused by the idea.

Alistair seemed to read the thought in her face. "Not to mention," he added, sounding defeated, "I don't know how."

_Then I guess we're off the hook_, Elan thought with a surge of relief. But she knew it wasn't that easy. They'd been granted a reprieve, a bit of time before the inevitable, not a release from their duty. They would have to face the archdemon eventually...after they figured out how.

"Why would Loghain leave Ferelden undefended like that?" Elan demanded suddenly, the words a bit too close to a wail. "What could he hope to gain?"

Alistair looked at her as if she were being deliberately obtuse. "The throne? He's the queen's father. Still," he said, suddenly looking perplexed, "I can't see how he'll get away with murder."

"You speak as if he would be the first king to gain his throne in that way," Flemeth scoffed. "Grow up, boy!"

Alistair wheeled on her, suddenly fierce. "If Arl Eamon knew what he did, he would never stand for it! The Landsmeet would never stand for it! There would be civil war!"

Arl Eamon, the arl of Redcliffe. Elan had never met the man, but she'd heard her father speak of him, often and with respect. They had fought together in the war against Orlais. With Loghain. With Howe.

"You think the arl would believe us over the teyrn?" she asked cautiously. Good man or not, surely it wouldn't be strange for him to believe his comrades in arms over two ragged survivors of an order whose influence in Fereldan had waned centuries before?

"I...suppose..." Alistair drew the words out as if testing them. "Arl Eamon wasn't at Ostagar; he still has all his men. And he was Cailan's uncle. I know him. He's a good man, respected in the Landsmeet." He turned to her with sudden enthusiasm. "Of course! We could go to Redcliffe and appeal to him for help!"

Elan struggled against the sudden urge to believe too much too soon. "And say he doesn't help us," she said, as a gently as she could. "What then?"

Which, of course, was when Flemeth interjected, reminding them of the treaties...and Alistair's enthusiasm was joined by something else, something that looked disturbingly like hope.

Elan wasn't at all sure she appreciated the way the witch seemed to be encouraging Alistair's apparent expectation that the two of them would be welcomed with open arms, as if they had only to ask in order to receive. It was probably her imagination, but it seemed as if the witch was fully aware he would be disillusioned, and was as pleased by that as by his resolution...like a spider toying with a fly.

"So can we do this?" Alistair turned to Elan, his hope deepening, steadying, burning bright. "Go to Redcliffe and these other places and...build an army?"

Elan sighed. Even if it hadn't been her duty, she simply wouldn't have been able to deny the man anything when he looked at her like that. She wasn't entirely sure she appreciated that particular vulnerability...and, yet, she did...because simply seeing him so happy made her own heart lift.

"I doubt it will be that easy," she warned him. Warned herself. Even though she knew at least one of them wasn't listening.

Flemeth laughed. "And when is it ever?"

"It's always been the Grey Wardens' duty to stand against a Blight," Alistair reiterated.

Elan knew he was right, but, she realized, he was also parroting Flemeth's earlier words. She frowned.

Alistair didn't seem to notice. He stepped closer, his forehead nearly touching hers, as he lowered his chin to stare intently into her eyes. "And right now, we're the Grey Wardens," he reminded her, sounding resolute, reaching out to touch her gloved hand with his. Her treacherous heart melted.

"So you are set then?" Flemeth asked. "Ready to be Grey Wardens?"

It was hard to concentrate with Alistair standing so close, but Elan thought the witch didn't sound surprised, nor particularly pleased. She also seemed neither skeptical nor believing. Elan wished she had a better idea of the witch's priorities and plans.

"As ready as we'll ever be," Elan said, almost surprised to find the resolution in her tone a match to Alistair's. The slow, steady smile that crossed his face made her blood heat; she smiled wryly. That certainly made it harder to feel the cold fear climbing its way up her spine. "Though I'd settle for staying alive," she added dryly.

"Hmmm," Alistair said, sounding surprised. "Now that you mention, that _would_ be nice." His fingers squeezed hers, just a bit. Then he suddenly realized what he was doing, and hastily dropped her hand, stumbling awkwardly away.

Flemeth laughed again. "Well, you can't expect me to do _everything_," she said flippantly. For some odd reason, the words made Elan relax. Slightly.


End file.
